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The University of Southampton
Philosophy Part of Humanities

Justification - Liberal foundationalism

You are in good company. Many contemporary philosophers are foundationalists who adopt a more liberal picture of the foundations than Descartes.

There are many versions of liberal foundationalism. A key question that divides liberal foundationalists is whether all foundational beliefs are based on evidence . Some liberal foundationalists hold that certain beliefs qualify as foundational not in virtue of being justified in a direct way by our evidence, but rather by being products of certain reliable belief-forming processes , such as perception and intuition.

To see which of these views you might prefer, consider a simpler question:

Do you think that a person has to have good evidence to be justified in believing something?

Yes No
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